Category Archives: Series Pieces

This is the last in our series of posts about the Trump regime. Part one can be found here, and part two is here.

We have argued that Trump’s election represents a deepening impasse in neoliberalism, and that this impasse results from a systemic crisis in capitalism. As capital works to counteract falling profit rates by contracting social reproduction, it faces a growing problem of legitimacy. Delegitimation deepened slowly but steadily for years and fractured the consensus below the neoliberal order. Now the rise of Trump represents a sudden expansion of these fractures, which extend, like cracks in a windshield, deep into the state. Continue reading Morbid Symptoms: Conclusions→

This is the third in a four-part series on Patriarchy on the Left. This series is organized from the universal to the particular; it looks at large questions like “what is patriarchy?” in the first part and ends by discussing micro-level questions: How do we deal with particular instances of patriarchy in our everyday organizing and political milieus? What tools do we have to combat patriarchy on the left? The first two pieces, looking at the totality of patriarchy, and the particular expressions of sexism within left communities, were co-written with Jocelyn Cohn, another member of Unity and Struggle. This piece and the fourth installment of this project (written by Jocelyn Cohn individually) will look at specific methods for dealing with patriarchy on the left with some critiques and comments. Continue reading The Hammer in our Hamlets: Patriarchy on the Left Part 3 of 4→

The following post is the second part in our notes on Trump. Part one can be found here. We’ll look at the limits and potentials of the forces arrayed against Trump in part three.

In our last post, we located the Trump regime within a global right wing resurgence enabled by capitalist crisis and the failures of social democracy. Now we can examine how this resurgence developed in the U.S. context. In this piece, we will explore how conservative hegemony emerged from the crisis of the 1970s, developed through the Reagan years and exhausted itself in the Obama era. We will then trace how Trump builds on the history of conservative hegemony even as he rends it in two, and outline the degree to which the incoming Trump regime stands to deepen authoritarianism. Continue reading Morbid Symptoms: The Downward Spiral→

As an interlude while we prepare the next installment of “Morbid Symptoms,” we’ve uploaded a short talk and reading list below. We hope these will help U.S. revolutionaries to analyze the phenomena of fascism and the Trump regime, and develop anti-fascist strategies on the ground that bring us closer to freedom.

The following series attempts to understand the rise of Donald Trump, particularly in the context of capitalist crisis and the emerging power of the populist and far right. Part one is below. Part two is here. Part three is here.

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The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.– Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

The election of Donald Trump––despite his losing the popular vote––has come as a shock to many Americans. While most recognized that the campaign had tightened after the intervention of the FBI, it was assumed that Clinton would edge out Trump on election day. But even if the Democratic Party had narrowly won the presidential election, it would have told us nothing about the development of mass rightwing populism and white nationalism in the U.S. This force represents both an immediate threat and a long-term strategic challenge to those of us seeking liberation. How can we understand what has happened? And what can be done? Continue reading Morbid Symptoms: The Rise of Trump→

This is the second part of a four part series that attempts to understand patriarchy in our current society. The first part, “No Lamps, No Candles, No More Light” explored the relationship between gender, patriarchy, and sexism broadly in capitalist society. This section will explore the expressions of patriarchy specifically in the “left” subculture. Parts three and four will look more specifically at recent attempts to deal with patriarchy on the left, some critiques and potential solutions.Continue reading No Safehouses: Patriarchy on the Left Part 2 of 4→

Many months ago, the two of us began writing a piece on dealing with patriarchy on the left. In the process of writing we began to realize that we did not have 100% agreement on the question. To us, this is very telling: no one has the answer and perhaps there is no one answer. We have thus decided to go forward in writing separate pieces on patriarchy on the left. This project was inspired by the combination of difficulties we have faced in our organizing, accountability processes we have been part of, as well as the attempts we have witnessed to address patriarchy on the left. We agree that the primary challenge facing many people in dealing with conflicts—especially those about gender—in left organizations and milieus is the confusion of the particular situation of individuals with the general conditions, creating situations where one person’s situation is taken to characterize all of society, thus leading to a solution which attempts to abolish a total social relation through a particular case. Similarly, we agree that none of us are able to deal with patriarchy as individuals, or as small groups of people operating outside of the transformation of total society.Continue reading No Lamps, No Candles, No More Light: Patriarchy on the Left Part 1 of 4→

The decision made by the grand jury to not indict Darren Wilson for the merciless killing of Mike Brown came at no surprise. I had been hearing and reading about similar stories prior to that one of Brown and realized the outcomes were pretty much the same. A black man dies at the hands of our American brothers and sisters and the system continues to work flawlessly. No indictment. No charge. Paid vacation. Half of me wishes this was fiction but all of the conscious me knows it is a full blown reality. Continue reading Turn Up Htown: Reflections on Nov 25 Day of Action→

1. Work to abolish police and prisons, not to reform them. President Obama has passed legislation to put body cameras on police officers, but this won’t stop the cops from killing black folks. Eric Garner’s murder was caught on camera like many others, and it didn’t save his life. Even worse, this reform can be used against the people it’s supposed to protect: a recent study showed body cameras help police far more often than their victims.

Burn Down the Prison:
Race, Property, and the Ferguson Rebellion

by TZ with edits from Chino, HiFi, and JF

Work?
I don’t have to work.
I don’t have to do nothing
but eat, drink, stay black, and die.
This little old furnished room’s
so small I can’t whip a cat
without getting fur in my mouth
and my landlady’s so old
her features is all run together
and God knows she sure can overcharge—
Which is why I reckon I does
have to work after all.
-Langston Hughes, “Necessity”

“A lot of people in the bourgeoisie tell me they don’t like Rap Brown when he says, ‘I’m gon’ burn the country down,’ but every time Rap Brown says, ‘I’m gon’ burn the country down,’ they get a poverty program.”
-Stokely Carmichael, Free Huey rally, 1969

“We may risk the prediction that we are entering into an era of riots, which will be transitional and extremely violent. It will define the reproduction crisis of the proletariat, and thus of capitalism, as an important structural element of the following period. By ‘riots’ we mean struggles for demands or struggles without demands that will take violent forms and will transform the urban environments into areas of unrest; the riots are not revolution, even the insurgency is not revolution, although it may be the beginning of a revolution.”
-Blaumachen, “The Transitional Phase of the Crisis: The Era of Riots,” 2011

Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead! Zine Discussion.m4a: Subversive Skype #9: Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead! Zine DiscussionHosted by Houston IWOC and Monkeywrench Books (May 2016)The I.W.O.C. (Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee) is a committee of the I.W.W (Industrial Workers of the World) that emerged following the Alabama strike in 2014. The I.W.O.C. “functions as a liaison […]

Subversive Skype - Minneapolis Rising.m4a: Subversive Skype #8: Minneapolis RisingHosted by Out of the Flames of Ferguson (December 2015)On Nov. 15 Jamar Clark was shot by Minneapolis police and died a day later. Many witnesses say he was handcuffed when shot. As we’ve seen in the past protesters immediately took to the streets using direct […]